2012’s Word of the Year: GIF or Omnishambles?

News

There’s seems to be some confusion about the Oxford American Dictionary’s ‘Word of the year’ for 2012.

Credible new outlets are reporting both “GIF” and “Omnishambles” as the chosen word.

BBC News says: “Omnishambles” has been named word of the year by the Oxford English Dictionary. The word – meaning a situation which is shambolic from every possible angle – was coined in 2009 by the writers of BBC political satire The Thick of It.”

While Time claims the title belongs to the word “GIF”: “And for 2012, Oxford Dictionaries settled on GIF. That’s GIF the verb, derived from GIF the file extension. These days, people often GIF snippets of movies or speeches to create funny little moving pictures on Tumblrs like this one.